great idea but then it bombs

Rating: 5/10 (10 December 2007)

I give it half points because the movie started out great and then nose dived during the second half. All the excitement over this movie shows that people really bought into the idea of a virus killing most of the population and there being only a few survivors running and fighting against it. The idea is really good. Even the beginning where they explain how the virus stared with scientific experiments with chips. Then the introduction of our character awaking in a hospital very uncertain as to where all the people have gone and what has happened to them. Then meeting up with other survivors and coming across the army transmission and the their new mission to find the military camp of supposed safety. All of this was great. But then when they finally got to the soldiers camp the movie just lost it. It's as if the writers didn't know what to do next so they threw up their hands and drove the movie right into the ground. Sort of like "From Dusk Till Dawn" where you have a story line going and then in the 2nd half of the movie you bring in the cheap idiot script to finish the movie because you haven't thought that far ahead. In both movies you have this journey to a specific place, and then once that place is reached you can't just end the movie because you need to fill in one more hour of filming. So slash everyone to pieces with senseless gore. In 28 Days the supposedly safe military guys turn evil and want to rape the women and there are then fights within the camp and along with the infected that eventually get access to the inside. Completely and unbelievably stupid. The sequel 28 Weeks Later did a better job of not destroying the 2nd half and for that I commend them. But I must bash the sequel for its stupid and unbelievable characters. The first movie did a better job with developing the characters and making them believable (the first half of the movie that is). So finally I can say that the movie has a great idea , but they just did a terrible job with it in both movies for different reasons.